Mumbai: The interests of students must be paramount whenever a school is relocated, the Bombay High Court has held. The HC made the observation while upholding the transfer of a government school in rural Maharashtra, which was moved 22 kilometres away from its original site.
A division bench of Justices Prasanna Varale and Avinash Gharote dismissed a petition filed by the principal of a school in a village of Aurangabad, which was shifted to another village.
The principal relied on a 2013 government resolution (GR) that specified guidelines for shifting schools from one place to another.
Having considered the submissions, the judges said, “The purpose and intent of the GR in question, is to ensure that a school is available to the students of the locality and they should not be required to travel large distances to reach school.”
“Thus, while considering the application for shifting (the school), the interests of students should be of paramount importance, which ought not to suffer, as getting basic education has been made a statutory right under the Right to Education Act, 2009,” the judges held.
In its brief order, the bench noted that the principal had initially prepared the application to move the school to another site, obtained the signatures of teaching and non-teaching staff and the parents of some students.
“In fact, this would indicate that not only the prinicpal had given her consent to shift the school but, in fact, was actively engaged in the preparation of the proposal submitted for doing so.”
Therefore, she now cannot be permitted to turn around and take a contrary stand,” the bench said.
“The principal cannot be permitted to approbate and reprobate, once having actively participated in preparation of the proposal for transfer and taken steps to ensure that the proposal would go through, then turning around and saying that the proposal did not have her consent or for that matter, the consent of the other teachers or the staff of the school,” the judges said.
